Small Steps When You Feel Stuck (EP 133)

[0:16] Hello, everyone, and welcome back to my unhealthy podcast, where we get honest about health habits and making changes that fit real life.

[0:29] I'm Uncle Marv, and today we are talking to Coach Willie Blake again. He's back to help us turn good intentions into a next useful step. And if you haven't listened to the first part, you should probably go do that. We explored his health journey and the experience of dealing with dyslexia and how that turned into some health issues from him. And we left with one little question that I probably should have asked him is when you want to feel better, but don't know where to start, how would you choose what to do next? So Willie, I'm going to start with that. And first of all, welcome back and good to see you again yeah good to see you, and i love to answer the question can you say it one more time, okay um when you want to feel better but don't know where to start how do you choose what to do next.

[1:28] Great question, There are different avenues I can take, but let's just keep it simple to start out with. Pick something that gets you into motion to start out with. Something that moves your body. It's one of Newton's laws that when you get into motion, you tend to stay in motion. So if it's the hard thing at work of making a client call or a cold call or sending an email, or it's at home of picking up the laundry or picking up the trash on the floor, cleaning the kitchen. Pick one thing to do. Set a timer for one minute to then get your body into motion. Pick up that trash for a minute. Then afterwards you say, okay, I feel kind of good. So we'll go to the next one. And then now it's, let's pick up the clothes for a minute. And I'm talking about this because this is what I went through when I was learning this. Very much pick one thing to do for a short time and then start building it.

[2:28] But the principle of pick one thing, that's it. Don't overthink it. One thing.

[2:34] So my modification of that, when I was trying to figure out what to do to make a change in my life, I, you know, worked all day, played basketball or did the podcast and then would come home and just sit in front of the TV all night and stuff. Um, it was, you know what, just turn off one program and go do something. And that was it. I mean, just turn the TV off for just one program. You don't have to turn it off all night but start there and replace that hour or whatever with TV with something else. And that was interesting. So there was a lot of walking around the neighborhood. It's funny how all of a sudden, you know, your neighbors are more friendly when you're out about walking around and pretty interesting time there. Yeah. And you start discovering that you have neighbors and that they're not just in their house, right?

[3:31] I love that the that word replace very crucial don't just try to get rid of something we all have 24 hours in a day not getting rid of something just then say, well shoot i turned off this program now am i going to sit here not do anything, sit here maybe I ll scroll through my phone now but find something intentional, to replace it with I m going to walk around the neighborhood, going to pick up the clothes and trash, going to whatever it is, have that replaceable, mark I think is very beneficial for a lot of people to hear. I'm going to write this down and, We have to come back and do a podcast just about the word replace because I didn't think I was in anything significant there. And you just turned it into, a pretty good little thing.

[4:22] Folks, Coach Willie Blake, his website, coachwillieblake.com, basically is there. If you're feeling stuck in life, career or business, listen to him talk about how he turned dyslexia into his edge. And now he's doing his coaching. He's got a podcast and Light Beyond Limits is the name of that show. So the links will be in the show notes there.

[4:48] When I started to end off last podcast, we talked about something that you've called the GPS method. So let's first talk about what that is because it sounds like an acronym that, we have so many of them in our lives. So what is the GPS method?

[5:09] Yes, GPS method. And it didn't start as an acronym. It actually started out as a story or as the symbolism of it. Because there's between Apple and Google Maps and between the wonderful thing that was in the compartment by our door that we opened up while we traveled to figure out like how to get to a destination called a map. There's this nice little black box that was a gps and that's where my mind went to.

[5:37] We know where we're going and where we're at and i have a plan we can start moving there, so that's where it initially came from but then i put an acronym to it because people remember acronyms a lot better than not no gps three separate things the g stands for get clear, the P plan the route and then the S start moving, so the get clear part is where is it that you're going what's that goal finish line northern star your why what is that, and then where are you at right now and as honest as you can about it are you overweight or are you unhealthy or are you healthy are you able to carry a conversation is it hard just to ask questions to people, Are you financially literate or are you just living paycheck to paycheck? Those questions in those areas help us to know where we're at. That leads to the direction. Once you have the direction, then you have the plan the route part, which is, from what I've experienced, taking the end goal, reverse engineering it backwards. That way you have the milestones and the steps so that finally when you press start or finally when you take the card of park.

[6:57] Then you start moving. It's like, okay, I'm not trying to build an international business right now. I'm just simply trying to get one client. And that milestone, I can then break down a lot easier rather than feeling overwhelmed with everything else.

[7:16] All right. I mean, it sounds easy but let me see if I can come up with this. That way? Yeah. Yeah. But here's where I think I would see either myself or a lot of us getting stuck. So, you know, we're exhausted from work. We barely move, watching sports all weekend long. And we say to ourselves, you know what, I'm going to start something on Monday. So if we were to walk through GPS, say that's my scenario right now, I'm going to start Monday. You know yeah we all know what happens when we just say that you know um.

[7:54] What would you suggest you know or what would we ask ourselves before starting that plan you know because yeah you want to talk about you know setting that clear path but uh what would be that first step to actually do that, first step i would ask is what do you want, What is it you want? Maybe you know it. Maybe you don't. Maybe you got to go back into the childhood memories of, I want to be an astronaut. I want to be a football player. I want to be a paleontologist. But those things of, what is it that you want? Because if you don't know what you want, nobody else is going to know what you want. And it doesn't matter what you change, what you replace things with. If you don't know what you want, then what's going on? So that'd be the first question I d go with is asking ourselves what is it that i want, I m going to do a little shout out here to uh Diana Feinstein, who was on the show and it's probably been over a year now, and i went through exercises with her where she would ask that very question, and it was you know what is it that you want and i would say something and she would have a question after that of either why, or what does that mean, yeah i was like what do you mean what does that mean.

[9:20] Oh um that's always a good starting place is to not just define what uh but also define why because, at least understanding why you want to do it should serve as motivation to actually make it happen.

[9:37] Agreed. That's just me thinking about that. I love it. And if we can, if we can continue in this type of role play scenario, I'll ask you with that in mind, exhausted from work, come home, watch sports all day. You just say Monday, Monday I want, we're going to change. Something's going to change. Then I would come to you. I'm that little thought in your head being like, what is it that you want? So I'll ask, I'll ask you thinking of that person, what do you think they would want to change? Well, I would say, first of all, to not be exhausted. That's probably the first thing is, you know, yes, there's a little bit of gratification watching sports, you know, because, you know, people are going to do that. They're there to watch sports, watch the Kardashians or, or whatever. But it's that whole idea of feeling like, I just, I'm too exhausted to do anything else. So I'm just going to sit here when in all honesty, if there was something that they truly wanted to do, go out with the friends, go to the game, it would get done, right? That's what I would think. Okay. Maybe not. Maybe it's because they're too exhausted. They can't even think about that.

[10:58] But I've found that, I mean, so obviously we're way off track here. We don't have a script. Oh, okay.

[11:07] Because that's the thing is, because I've said that to friends and family. It's like, you know, when they complain about, ah, too tired. You're not too tired to do this other thing, you know. So I'm going to go back to the word that I coined earlier. Replace it with something else. I mean, a lot of times that's what I've been doing, I should say, when I get to those roadblocks. I'm not going to say I do it every time. I'm not going to lie, but that's what I've been trying to figure out.

[11:39] And so there's many different ways in which we could diagnose like a doctor would.

[11:48] But then if we diagnose with the level of which we have in this example, it would be malpractice. Because we didn't ask. that many questions. You're exhausted. Okay. Is it, is it physical exhaustion? Mental? Is it, is it spiritual exhaustion? How's your, your, maybe it's a relationship with God that you feel like, man, I'm just so angry at the world and I blame that higher power. They're so frustrated. We don't know until we ask. And so asking like, what, what, what are you exhausted with? Tell me a little bit more about your day. And then the thing you brought up is, yeah, if you want to do something, you'll, you would do it. Well, I want to, I want to lose weight. I want to get healthy. But when a salad or a piece of pizza comes in front of me, I tend to go for the piece of pizza. And so it's not just the, our willpower, but it's also the routine and habits that we go in, which is a question that we can do. So it's a really, the beginning steps is the whole self-discovery part. Because not only is it, maybe you are exhausted, but that might not even be the solution. Maybe it's because the activities that you do afterwards that we call rest and recovery aren't actually making us feel recovered.

[13:07] Sitting in front of a TV doesn't rest our body and make us recover from everything else that happened during the week. Things that I ve seen that help do that getting out walking, getting hydrated drinking water getting some sleep sleep is a big one doing getting some exercise taking a bath taking a shower things that relax our body maybe it's even meditation, like truly things that will help rest and recover so it could also be that, it's that it's that initial part when you ask that question of four people who feel exhausted and they're in the weekends, watch sports, and we want to change something on Monday, what the heck do I do? We start out with, let's get a little bit more clear on it. We'll start out with, what is it that you want to do? Because now we know what we're doing. But then after we know what we're doing, there's the second part of where we're at right now. And that is the true reflection that the more concrete and specific that we can get, the better able then that we are to know the direction that we need to head. Whether that is to rest and recovery or doing something different at the job or simply let's just go hang out with the boys for a Saturday night.

[14:28] Um, walk, water, sleep. For some reason, I'm thinking that those three things can either kickstart a very good thing or they can solve a lot of issues. Does that sound fair? That's fair. Yeah. Sleep especially because we don't get enough sleep.

[14:50] Yeah and it's so funny because we think about sleep and a third of our life goes to sleep, so why in the world is that not one of the most important things, because our body needs it not just for the whole sake of fatigue and performance, but to then download the memories and the lessons that we learned today into long-term memory to then be able to, uh, have our, the, the, the organs that we have in our body and the blood pumping, be able to go to where it needs to go so that we can perform the next day. Yeah. Sleep is very important. And I'm not a doctor. I'm not, I've said some smart things and those are things that I've learned along my journey. A scientist could explain it way better than I can. But from what I've experienced, yeah, getting sleep solves.

[15:48] A lot of the challenges that go on, especially on the side of anxiety, stress, and those type of areas. Interesting. So let me ask this. So how much, I should probably ask another question first. Let me go back to how much of your time is actually spent going through that process of getting people to be open and honest about what it is they want? Because there's a part of me that thinks that people probably come to you and say, I want this, but it's not really the thing they want. Am I saying that right? Right. Yeah. So the first call that I get on with people, very much the entire call, if not multiple calls afterwards, is to figure out that. Because if we don't know where we're going and where they're at, we can put as much planning and effort as we can into it, but it's not going to work out.

[16:51] And I m not even saying that we're going into the overthinking part of planning, but so many people tend to go one of two ways they jump to the side of we have to take all the action and we just got to go out and experiment and try a bunch of things without really thinking about where they're going, those are the people in the middle of the ocean rowing as fast as they can but they're just going in circles.

[17:16] Then you got the other side of the extreme of these are the over planners that I got to plan for every scenario so that when I finally jump in, which is really if I finally jump in, then I already know what to say, do, and everything in between. To which that's where you hit analysis paralysis. Because there's so much you know that you probably are able to plan for about 5%.

[17:45] 5% of everything that's going to happen. And I'm throwing that percentage out there, but it's accurate to what I've seen. You could probably plan for 5%. The other 95%, you're going to learn while you're in the field, while you're out there doing it. But in the beginning, I shouldn't say but, and that beginning process, we're getting clear on what it is we're doing, where we're getting at. And sometimes depends on the person. If they're very self-aware and they know where their weaknesses and threats are, it's a very easy conversation to then jump into the planning and then the execution part. But if it's someone who hasn't touched it before, who is very scared and timid to even go into that area, then it's building the trust between us, creating the safe space, and being able to talk about that, which can happen over several calls to then get the same answers that will then go into the planning and the execution. Gotcha.

[18:48] I've just found that sometimes it's, that's where people get stuck is doing that proper identification up front, you know, not planning out where they truly want to go, just they know they got to do something.

[19:01] Once that happens, have you incorporated any of the 75 hard into your coaching now?

[19:10] The yes and no, not that everybody in my program needs to do 75 hard, not like that, but very much so the keep trying part. If you fail, it's not a reset to day one. You're just starting from where you're at and you go again and you keep going and keep going until you reach the goal. So that part, I would say very much so now is even more implemented into what I do. It's just keep going. Don't get stuck because you think that you're not getting there as fast as you can or feel like you have failed because you haven't. It's just one moment. Failure. Failure is a time in a moment. Long term, it's either you reach it, which is success, whatever that looks like for the person, or it's you're along the journey. And that's it. it's a lesson to be able to learn. So that's the, that's the big incorporation again, not the whole 75 hard part, but the after, after attempt 10, let's now try 11. There you go. That's a, that is gotta be strong motivation to be able to do that. Like I told you before. So again, congrats to that. I just, I'm still thinking I couldn't do it. And 11. I didn't think I could do it either. I just tried it. And I felt there were some of the temps that were only...

[20:39] Two days long, like between two and six days, there are probably at least a third of the attempts that were between two and six days long before I had to restart.

[20:49] I just kept going. And the going, it makes it sound like I reset to day one and then started again. No, it was very much, I got to day six, had to restart, but then didn't restart till a month and a half down the road, to where then I got back up and said, okay, I can do this now again.

[21:12] Wasn't clean cut at all. But at the end of the journey, now that I've hit this, the success or hit the result I was, I can look back and say, yeah, this story for 75 Hard is now complete. So it's 10 attempts to then attempt 11, which I was able to finish, which sounds a lot better than in the middle of it, which was very real of, yeah, I got to day six and then messed up. Didn't want, wanted to eat the sugary cake that was against my diet. Didn't want to drink that gallon of water. And then I don't want to keep doing this. Forget about it. So I dropped it for a month and a half. Then the app was still on my phone and I thought, okay, I'll try it again because I've gained a couple pounds since then. And I didn't like that. And so just keep getting up and keep going.

[22:05] So i did go and look up the name that you said you probably would butcher Andy Frisella, yes for some and the 75 card rules i could probably still look at that name and try to read it and mess it up from the way i read but yeah um, how did you how did you come across that i didn't i didn't ask you that.

[22:27] I saw it several times over different social medias, from advertisements he did to one or two celebrity people. And then it was one of my friends that I knew back in college. Her name was Tasha. And her and her husband did 75 Hard. And so I messaged her saying, hey, that's really cool that you're doing this. How's it going? And she shared her stories of falling off and getting back on and going through it. And I thought, oh, that's cool. And so that was probably eight months to a year before my baby was born to when I looked at those pictures to where I said, okay, I want to change. And then that little note of, oh, Tasha did this. Her and her husband did great. They lost a lot of weight and look healthy. Maybe I can do that too.

[23:24] Hmm um that's a weird thing to ask uh i shouldn't I m sorry hit it let's do it, in my head i was thinking of a question I m like that's a hard thing to do, when two people are doing something together I m trying to imagine if i could do that with my wife and I m thinking not but uh did they actually start and finish together or were they just both doing it but on their own pace and schedule.

[23:52] They were doing it together at the time. I don't know if they finished. I never went back and I should ask. I should go back and ask about it. But I didn't. I just, I think they were on day, I saw it on day 17 and like day 32 is when I reached out to Tasha and said, hey, it looks, you guys are looking good. Way to, way to stay committed to this. But yeah, I never, never asked them after that if they finished. There's a podcast for you too. Get them on your show and talk about that. I should. That's a good idea. Oh. All right.

[24:29] So, Willie, let me ask if there is there anything else that you may want to leave the listeners with if they are, you know, got something that they want to get past and struggling and need that motivation. Yeah, there were actually two things. One was what I thought from earlier. And then the second one came up as you were talking. First one was, you're not behind, you're just still in park.

[24:57] So if you think back to that car, the car analogy of that I briefly went over now that I'm thinking about it. If you have your map, you click on it, you know where you're going and where you're at. Let's say you're going to Walmart from your house. Click on it. Click on directions on your phone. Pulls up the map. Go this direction around this way from A to B to get to Walmart. You say, cool, and you click start. Zooms in on your location. It says go 200 feet and turn left. But what if you never take the car out of park you're just going to stay in your driveway, so a lot of people they are over planning they are over analyzing everything trying to think that they have to either have the perfect plan or they just really don't know what they want because they haven't asked themselves that question what is it that i want.

[25:47] That they're sitting in their driveway with their car turned on. And what they can do is put the car in reverse back out of the driveway and then just start. And then as you're starting, then you can turn corners and you can avoid cars. Then you can be able to, as traffic comes up, go a different direction and be able to maneuver. So that's why I tell people that when they feel behind in that paralyzed state, get your car out of park start doing something get into motion do one thing that you can do so that's the first thing that came up the second thing that came from you was in relation to don't do it alone, we're humans there's a reason why there's over eight billion people on this planet and i think that the creator didn't want us being here by ourselves and i don't think that we feel that way. When we think of love and we think of peace and joy, It doesn't come from just one of us. It comes from the connection that we have with other people. It comes from our ability to experience with other people as well.

[26:58] Like with the story of going out, walking outside and meeting some neighbors. That's where it started to feel a little bit better. It's like, okay, people are actually outside. And it's not just me walking around. So now I feel more motivated to turn off a second program and spend a little bit more time outside. So it's the don't do it alone. With the 75 hard thing I did, that's what I tried to do. Didn't work out. My wife knew about it. She knew I was doing it. But I was taking pictures of myself in the bathroom. Wasn't posting about them. Didn't share that part of the story. I didn't like the way I looked. But it was when I started to then.

[27:42] Talk about it with other people. and I started to have other people encourage me and then they also get inspired to jump on that then gave me more motivation, and ability to then go and finish it and to keep going. So if anything was heard on this episode, I would really like the listeners to hear, one, don't do it yourself. There's a lot of people out there that love you and believe in you. And they want to support you. And then the second thing of let's get out of the overthinking part. Figure, ask yourself what it is that you want, and then find one thing that you can do today to work toward that.

[28:25] All right. It's a good place to finish. I had a couple of questions pop up, but I'm not going to ruin what you just asked. I'm out about that.

[28:37] Uh so uh thank you again uh willie for sharing uh part of your story and helping us work through some of this stuff and the practical things um, sorry for taking us off course with the with the uh what do you want conversation but.

[28:55] Yes i think it was today yeah maybe you needed to have it and maybe the listener who was listening needed to have it we don't know.

[29:04] Yeah uh folks you can find out more about willie, uh at coach willie blake.com explore his podcast light beyond limits, and uh those links are in the show notes and uh we started this talking about uh the experience of starting over and uh starting over, i think Like Willie said it, you know, having the willingness and, fortitude to start over at 11, um, when you didn't finish 10 is something that, you know, push yourself to do. And if you got to have somebody be there to help you find that person and get to it. So, all right, Willie, thank you so much, sir. Honor is mine. Thank you. All right. That's going to do it, folks. Um I m just going to let you relish in the conversation we had uh find one action you can take and just get moving as willie said so, uncle Marv signing off here from the unhealthy podcast we'll talk to you soon, and until next time live healthy and be happy.